Of the Same Coin
by Miserable Sentinel
Summary: A few months after Ichigo rescues Rukia from execution at the hands of Aizen's master plan, Ichigo finds himself back home in dreary Karakura. But the peace following the conflict is not meant to last, and Ichigo knows it: an inexorable shadow lurks over the horizon, looking to consume the world of the living. And it's got its eyes set on one sleepy little rural town. (IchiRuki)
1. Chapter 1 - Once more, unto the breach

**A/N: MisSent here. For those of you who are joining for the first time, welcome! This work is a reboot of an incredibly old, unfinished story. If you want to give it a go, look up The Weight of Thy Sin. For those of you who are rejoining me, hi again! I hope you'll be patient with me as we restart this journey on another note.**

 **Chapter 1**

 _Rain. Why is it always raining?_

 _Oh. This dream again._

"…"

 _A sharp pain in his forehead. He opens his eyes to darkness. No, not darkness, just…a little darker. Shadow, creeping along his peripheral vision._

 _The weight is familiar. A welcome heaviness. It pulls him together. Grounds him, gives him purpose. Direction._

"— _osaki."_

 _He looks up. Someone else stands before him. Who—?_

 _Small and battered, petite and ragged. Breath coming in gasps, one arm hanging limply at her side. The red rain paints her face crimson. Or is it the blood on her face that reddens the falling rain?_

 _It doesn't matter. He knows what he must do._ She _is responsible._ She _must pay. Her emerald eyes narrow. Defiance flits across her face, quickly replaced by fear._

 _He will have his—._

"Kurosaki!"

Ichigo jerked awake, another pellet of chalk finding its mark squarely on his forehead. A collective chuckle rippled through the classroom as he pulled himself together, quickly wiping away the faintest trail of drool from the corner of his mouth. The teacher folded his arms across his chest, a disapproving scowl working its way through the aged creases of his face. "Have a good time in Wonderland?"

Ichigo mumbled an apology and sat up. Whether this satisfied the teacher or not he had no idea, but it did have its intended effect: the teacher unfolded his arms and resumed droning at the lectern about the historical intricacies of Japanese government.

The second his back was turned, Ichigo slumped again and stared out the window, lazily resting his head on an arm.

Summer had snuck up on him from around the corner, and thanks to his activities in Soul Society the previous semester, he'd found himself in dire need of remedial classes, a realization that had been equal parts depressing and frustrating.

Three months. That's how long it was since Ichigo had recovered from his assault on Soul Society, how long it had been since his life had switched from daring rescues and survival at all costs to worrying about how he would pass math without having to cheat.

Though he didn't at all miss having to fight for his life while constantly on the run, he couldn't help but desire _some_ excitement in this otherwise dull daily routine.

His eyes wandered to the girl sitting just next to the window, whose dark hair reflected the bright midday sun's light in deep shades of violet, and frowned when she made eye-contact with him and waved over-enthusiastically, drawing the attention of a few of her neighboring students.

Rukia had returned around a month ago, voluntarily and with only one string attached: she had to resume her post in the town, which meant regular reports back to Soul Society, hardly comparable to a death sentence. He was glad she had come back with such ease; it had meant confirmation that his dear friend was safe, a great relief to himself and his friends.

But this quiet, this state of peace, felt…uneasy. Ichigo didn't consider himself one who craved violence, but his brief foray into the bloodshed involved in heated battle had given him some food for thought regarding the true nature of peace. Peace had to be fought for, had to be wrested away from conflict, and he was starting to feel as though any form of concord that lasted too long meant something was looming over the horizon, just waiting for the right moment to collapse on top of every precariously placed piece of fragile peacetime.

The revelation of Aizen's machinations played a pretty big part in this unease; if Ichigo understood correctly, Aizen, the fox-eyed Captain (Gin, was it?), and the blind Captain had been part of the Shinigami Corps for such a long time that this betrayal had come out of left field entirely. Ichigo had no doubt that up until that point, no one would have ever suspected such a sinister plot originating from _within_ the Captains' ranks. Which led to a self-sustaining doubt: were there any other traitors they weren't yet aware of?

The dreams didn't help either. A recurring reverie, borderline nightmare about someone needing to be killed had been plaguing his restless nights. The bits and pieces that stayed with him past the sleepy hours of the morning were nonsensical, difficult to put together in any useful way beyond 'these dreams are annoying.'

A crumpled piece of paper landed squarely on his nose, causing him to jerk back in surprise a second time in far too few minutes. He glanced daggers at Rukia's turned back, knowing full well that she was the culprit and was merely feigning ignorance.

He unraveled the note.

 _Quit looking like such a grouch!_

The note ended with a small graphic of what Ichigo could only surmise was supposed to be a cute bunny. Chappy, from what Ichigo remembered about Rukia's excited babbling about rabbits and Soul Candy. He resisted the incredible temptation to throw it right back, knowing his luck was not nearly good enough for that to go unnoticed, and instead crumpled it up and stowed it in his pocket.

He tried to pay attention, picking up his pencil and listening for anything particularly important he felt he'd have to write down.

 _Just a few hours to go_ …he groaned inwardly.

* * *

"Do you ever smile?"

Ichigo said nothing, choosing instead to take a substantial bite out of his sandwich.

"No, seriously, do you?"

He made sure to chew slowly and overexaggerated every component of the action.

"Because at this point I'm convinced you don't have the actual muscles in your face that make the smiling motion." This was punctuated by a hard poke to the side of Ichigo's cheek.

He swallowed the half-chewed mass of food and forced a grin, though it felt admittedly closer to a grimace than any kind of smile. Rukia visibly flinched and leaned away, retracting the offending finger. "Ugh."

Inoue laughed a little at their interaction. "Kuchiki-san, I don't think he likes when you do that," she said as she pantomimed jabbing a finger.

"But…I'm curious," Rukia said quietly, clearly itching to poke and prod Ichigo's cheek again. He warned her quickly, "I'll bite you." Mentally, he thanked Inoue for the save. He'd wanted to have lunch in peace, and Rukia's borderline interrogations were starting to wear him thin.

"I do agree with her, though," Inoue piped up. "You don't really seem to smile, Kurosaki-kun. Have you… _forgotten how to_?"

He retracted his silent thanks as Rukia continued her tirade about his non-smiling countenance, encouraged by Inoue's reinforcement. "Chad? A little help here, buddy?" Ichigo said, exasperation plain.

The quiet giant replied without looking up from the little bird perched on his leg, "They have a point."

Rukia and Inoue both nodded vigorously in unison. "See? Even he thinks so!"

"Traitor," Ichigo hissed. Chad shrugged apologetically and continued to feed the bird, wanting no part of the inane conversation. Ichigo sighed inwardly.

As he steeled himself against Rukia and Inoue's long-winded admonishments about how not smiling would somehow reduce his lifespan, he felt something tickle the base of his skull. He recognized the sensation resultant of his instinct for danger, long since silent following his departure from Soul Society. It buzzed a little more insistently, at which Ichigo stood, silencing both Inoue and Rukia. While Inoue seemed a bit taken aback by the abrupt motion, Rukia seemed to catch on almost immediately.

"What is it?" she asked, a hand already in her pocket, probably fingering the contours of her Soul Candy dispenser.

"I don't know, but I get the feeling something is about to go down," Ichigo murmured, Shinigami badge in hand and ready for use.

Not a second later, a lowing cry echoed in the distance, sending a chill up Ichigo's spine. It had been a while since he'd last heard the noise, but it was unmistakable.

"Rukia?" Ichigo asked as he squeezed the wooden sigil, pulling free of his physical body and drawing his weapon. "You ready?"

"I've got a direction," she said quickly, already out of her gigai and checking her phone. "Let's go!"

"Take care of my body, will you?" Ichigo called back as the two of them leapt away towards the reading on Rukia's spirit phone. The gikon in Rukia's body waved back very enthusiastically, as Chad and Inoue quickly and quietly got to work. He grimaced as he refocused his attention to the task at hand. He'd likely never get used to seeing himself dragged away like that.

The roar of the Hollow came again, sharpening Ichigo's focus. It was closer this time, and much louder.

"You getting a reading on this thing? It sounds pretty big, going off how freaking loud it is," Ichigo called to Rukia.

She shook her head and stowed her phone. "Something keeps jamming the sensor. We'll have to do this the old-fashioned way."

It didn't take them very long to reach the Hollow's location. Sure enough, the creature was large, much larger than the last one Ichigo had fought. It crawled on six legs, its body pinched where the legs emerged. A mask comprised of a familiar shade of white adorned its unseen face, decidedly arachnoid in appearance. For all its mass it simply looked like an overgrown spider.

"Ugh. Let's get this over with," Ichigo said, brandishing Zangetsu. He leapt forward, ready to swing the giant cleaver into the Hollow—.

—and was instead thrown back with almighty force, crash-landing on a nearby rooftop. Rukia instantly backpedaled and took cover on the same rooftop upon seeing Ichigo knocked away so easily.

 _It hit me?_ _How?_

Ichigo groaned as he got back to his feet, still smoldering where he'd been struck. A quick once-over made it clear to him that it hadn't been the Hollow that flung him away. It was rooted in place, wracked with violent convulsions as a stream of black electricity coursed into its bizarre, insectoid mask. Arcs of lightning snapped from the Hollow to the surrounding environment, narrowly missing the two Shinigami.

"What on earth…?" Rukia murmured, brow furrowed and eyes darting, searching for the source of the lightning. From where Ichigo stood, the stream of electricity was visible, and it was clear that its origin was somewhere within one of the dark alleyways, but it was impossible to see who or what was generating it without risking being speared by an errant bolt of lightning.

After a few agonizingly long seconds of the snapping, crackling sounds of electrocution, the torrent ceased, and the Hollow immediately fell to the ground, a sizzling heap of dead flesh and bone. It slowly disintegrated, its remains bleeding away into clouds of dust.

Ichigo and Rukia got to their feet slowly, wary of the unseen assailant. Rukia stepped forward first, calling authoritatively, "Show yourself!"

A single chip of light glinted in the dark of the alley at her command. Suddenly Ichigo felt it: a heavy pall had fallen upon him, its iron grip weighing him down like…chains. This wasn't reiatsu, the texture and consistency was wrong. But it wasn't unlike the weight of someone's spiritual pressure bearing down on him, like the time he'd first met Kenpachi.

Rukia shuddered visibly, and Ichigo realized that the aura was hitting her harder than it was him, and flared his reiatsu with what limited control he had in order to shield her from the deluge. It seemed to be a marginally helpful move, but it was clear that Rukia still felt the weight.

The single luminescent mote bobbed as it moved closer, out of the dark, and was accompanied by the appearance of a young man, whose body dripped from the shadows with fluid purpose. He looked to be a little older than Ichigo, though not by much. His dress was very utilitarian, consisting of a simple shirt and jacket with worn jeans.

What really caught Ichigo's attention was his face. His face was physically young, but there was an uncharacteristic hardness to his expression, too many creases in the little patch of forehead that was visible through his long bangs, too cold a gaze in his visible eye.

Ichigo felt a sudden chill ride up his spine. Something about him was just _wrong._ Everyone he'd fought until now had exerted some kind of force, a projection of their will. Kenpachi, for all his brutal, barbaric ferocity, had still exuded a pure aura, one that made it clear that he simply wanted to kill you or die trying. The same went for Byakuya; pure pride had been the focus of his battle. _This_ person exuded nothing. Where Ichigo should have been able to pick out some kind of motive, some emotion, any kind of hint that would help him understand exactly who he was about to face, there was a tangible void.

"Rukia," he breathed, gripping Zangetsu tightly. Rukia heeded the unspoken warning and took up her stance.

"Identify yours—."

Ichigo detected movement, but couldn't track it. All he saw was that the mysterious youth had been down _there_ , but was now somehow up _here_ , right in front of them. He reeled back, Zangetsu ready to block the incoming attack…which never came.

The stranger turned his eye on Rukia, who stood her ground under the piercing gaze and repeated herself, this time to completion. "Identify yourself!"

He rumbled in response, "You speak?"

The petite Shinigami shared a confused glance with her orange compatriot, before answering hesitantly. "Obviously. Now identify yourself. I won't ask a second time," she brandished her weapon a little more insistently.

Something sour corrupted the otherwise empty aura, which Ichigo picked up on immediately but could not quite comprehend. All he knew was that it was not exactly indicative of an invitation to be friends and bake cookies, and that was enough for the alarm bells to start going off in his head.

"Get back!" Ichigo bellowed, loosing a stream of blue-white reiatsu into the stranger. Rukia immediately leapt into the air to avoid the blast, muttering an incantation in the meantime.

If the sudden attack had hurt him, the stranger did not show it. He remained where he stood, a single hand outstretched and smoldering from blocking the primitive Getsuga. Ichigo then noticed the greyish bandages swathed around both hands. Judging from how undamaged they were after direct contact with a Getsuga, he assumed that they were not meant for healing, but for a combative purpose. Maybe it was armor?

He shook the assumptions away and decided to seize the initiative, dashing forward whilst swinging Zangetsu in a wide arc, intending to catch the stranger's attention—.

A sharp pain in his back sent him reeling into a wall, where he crumpled with a loud _crunch_. Some of the bricks had cracked upon impact, and Ichigo felt the point of impact throb with pain. He stood up, attempting to gain his bearings, when another loud sound snapped him out of it. Looking up, he saw Rukia grimacing and clutching her sword arm, which hung limply from her shoulder. The stranger floated freely next to her, his right arm raised overhead for a hammer strike.

Ichigo sprang into action, kicking off the wall he'd crashed into with all his might. "No!" he yelled, willing himself to move as fast as he could. He managed to swing Zangetsu into the path of the stranger's overhead blow, and gawked as Zangetsu bounced off his arm harmlessly.

Swallowing his surprise, he swung Zangetsu around behind him, using the momentum of the deflection to fuel his next attack. Perhaps it had been a fluke—.

No. Zangetsu stopped mid-swing, its bladed edge resting against the stranger's outstretched hand.

… _Unarmed?!_

The figure gripped Zangetsu and intoned, "Corruption, Discharge."

At his words, a wreath of black electricity snapped to life around his hand and coursed into Zangetsu and, by extension, Ichigo.

"Ichigo!" Rukia called out, swinging her undamaged arm uselessly at their assailant, missing completely and receiving another harsh strike to the abdomen for her trouble. Winded, she fell to the roof of the building below her.

Ichigo gritted his teeth in agony; electricity surged through his entire body. Every muscle was drawn taut, every limb paralyzed from the over-contraction, and even breathing was beginning to burn.

"You would do well to bury the threats," he said, loudly enough for Rukia to hear. All the while, his gaze never broke from Ichigo, who saw now that his cold expression hardly changed, even during this one-sided battle.

The vile current finally ceased, and Ichigo felt the rigor mortis melt away, leaving his body limp and with a consistency like jelly. He fell to the roof next to Rukia with a crash, struggling to move his treacherous limbs.

The stranger landed just beside him, hands in pockets and still wearing the same blank expression. Rukia weakly tried to brandish her Zanpakuto with her off-hand, and only managed to swing the blade into his arm with a meek _clack_. He made no attempt to dodge or even block the broken swing.

He spoke quietly, but with undeniable authority. "Stand down."

Rukia clutched her arm, her sword still clutched in hand, but chose to heed the figure's command. She lowered her weapon and straightened, grimacing as she continued to recover from her short-lived incapacitation.

A few seconds passed as the figure surveyed the two Shinigami. Then he spoke, his words concise and to the point. "You fight those things?" He jerked his head back towards the space where the Hollow had died.

Ichigo and Rukia shared another quick look, before Rukia nodded silently.

"For what purpose?"

Ichigo answered quickly. "To protect the innocent in this city," he said, trying his best to word the answer as vaguely as possible. If this young man was an enemy, it would probably be best to have a trump card he didn't know about, like reinforcements from Soul Society. Rukia nodded almost imperceptibly at Ichigo's words. Apparently she'd been thinking the same thing.

The stranger's eye narrowed. For a couple long minutes, he simply stared at Ichigo, as if trying to see through his eye and into his brain. If he'd noticed Ichigo's lie of omission, he didn't indicate it.

"We will meet again," he said quietly, before disappearing once more. The weight of the man's energy lifted, and Ichigo let out a breath he'd been unconsciously holding, looking at Rukia when she did the exact same thing. She immediately began working on her wounds with kido, and soon enough, began working to restore the tone in Ichigo's muscle as well. She worked in silence, and Ichigo felt no need to fill it with words he did not have. He knew both of them were thinking the same thing:

 _So begins something new._


	2. Chapter 2 - Half the Battle

**A/N: I'm always kind of taken aback by how many people ask for Ichigo to have a rival love interest. If the rest of you guys are interested in that, just let me know and I can make it happen…I think. Anyways, enjoy!**

 **Chapter 2**

"That's quite a tall tale, Kurosaki-san! Surely you don't expect me to believe both of you were bested by a human?"

Rukia hurled one of the many boxes lying around at the green-clad shopkeep, who yelped in surprise and pain at the sudden attack. "Be serious, Urahara!" huffed Rukia. "This isn't a laughing matter."

Urahara rubbed his nose gingerly, seemingly fixated on nursing the pain away. But both Rukia and Ichigo had met with Urahara enough times to recognize the look in his eyes was more distant than usual, fixed on a point far beyond either of them. If what Yoruichi and everyone else from Soul Society said was true, the shopkeep was much more than his jovial nature let on.

"What to do?" he mused to himself as he leaned forward, his gaze refocusing on Rukia's arm. She noticed his intrigue immediately. "What is it?" she asked, looking back and forth between Urahara and the target of his gaze.

He reached out with his cane and tapped Rukia's shoulder, right where Mathis has struck her and disabled her sword-arm. An almost imperceptible frown tugged at the corners of his mouth for a split second. "Kuchiki-san, would it be safe to assume that human struck you here?"

"What of it?"

"I can feel something from it," Urahara explained, tapping her once more. "The troubling bit is that it's most certainly _not_ based on any form of reiryoku, which should be impossible."

Ichigo scratched his head in confusion. "Why?"

"Have you ever seen any spiritual entity completely incapacitated by anything other than reiatsu? Whether it is a Zanpakuto or a Kido, or even your fists when you're in your Shinigami form, a spiritual entity can only be harmed by reiryoku-based attacks."

"But Chad helped me defeat a Hollow by smashing it with a telephone pole," Rukia interjected. "Besides the fact that he ripped a _telephone pole_ out of the ground, Chad didn't have any special reiatsu at that time, so how did it hurt Shrieker?"

Urahara quickly got up, shimmied his way over to Rukia, and then abruptly flicked her nose, much to her chagrin. "W-what was that for?!"

"That hurt, right?" Urahara asked teasingly. Rukia smacked the grinning shopkeep, silencing his chortles. "Yes, it hurt! And it was uncalled for!"

Urahara rubbed his cheek and leaned back. "So do you think I could knock you out by doing only that?"

Ichigo frowned. "I'm not sure you want to compare Chad's strength to a little flick like that."

"Well, in a manner of speaking, they're one and the same when it comes to comparing corporeal force with spiritual force. Chad's strikes certainly caused the Hollow pain, but just as my flicking Miss Kuchiki hurt her," Urahara explained, narrowly evading another box thrown his way by Rukia, "it would never be a way to truly incapacitate her, not like a Zanpakuto or Kido could. At best, it would surprise or irritate her enough to retaliate with greater force, but nothing more."

Ichigo had remembered Rukia's account of her battle with Shrieker. The Hollow had begun to lash out more following Chad's initial assault, confirming Urahara's explanation.

"So when you tell me a _human_ , one from whom you couldn't detect any reiatsu, managed to not only hold his own against you two but also take you out of commission, you'll have to understand if I am a bit skeptical," Urahara said solemnly. "This is a largely unprecedented incident."

"Although," he added as an afterthought, "I do suppose his non-hostility towards the end is a good sign. And you say he did not request anything?"

Ichigo shook his head. "Nothing. He just said we'd meet again and then took off."

Urahara stood and fixed his striped cap. "I understand. For now, there isn't much you can do aside from resume your duties as usual. Perhaps, Kuchiki-san, you can notify Soul Society of what has transpired?"

Rukia nodded. "As soon as you recharge my phone," she said with an irritable grunt.

And with that, the tension deflated like a balloon. Urahara's silly smile graced his features once again as he transitioned back into his shopkeeper persona. "Of course! Can I also interest you in…"

The following exchanges between Rukia and Urahara escaped Ichigo's focus, as it lay elsewhere, namely on the odd emptiness he'd felt during the altercation with the stranger. The sour note that had stained the otherwise hollow aura also raised questions, none of which Ichigo could assign answers or even flimsy explanations.

"Ichigo?" Rukia's gentle touch snapped him out of his reverie. Ichigo blinked a couple times before recovering lamely with, "Yeah, I'm…uh…it's nothing."

Rukia's brow furrowed, but she didn't pursue the line of questioning. She stood, brandishing her phone and an extra pair of battery packs. "I've got what I need, so unless you need something from Mr. Manager over there," she said, jabbing a finger back at Urahara, "we should probably get going. You'll end up having to take remedial classes for remedial classes if you're not careful."

Ichigo sighed explosively, having remembered the spell of boredom he'd been enduring before the Hollow and the stranger had shown up. "Alright, let's get out of here."

The Shinigami bade Urahara a farewell, with Rukia also throwing a rock at the shopkeep for good measure, and took off for the school. It didn't take them too long to reach the building, though Ichigo did slow down considerably for the last legs of the journey, which prompted Rukia to drag the orange-haired substitute Shinigami by his robes onto the roof, where Chad and Orihime awaited.

"Kurosaki-kun, Kuchiki-san! Is everything ok?" Orihime asked as they alighted by their bodies and began easing their way back in.

"Well…" Ichigo said slowly, not sure how to explain the situation without setting off Orihime's excessive concern. "We ran into a bit of a snag." He explained as succinctly as he could, describing the circumstances of their meeting and the altercation that had followed. He was quick to assure the two that by the end, a sort of pseudo-truce had been put into place, though he didn't voice his concerns about the stranger's aura.

"I'll be taking this up with Soul Society as well," Rukia said reassuringly. "Worst case scenario, we'll have reinforcements ready for if he tries to do anything funny."

"We'll help next time, too," Chad added quietly, raising his fist for emphasis. Ichigo smiled and returned the gesture. "Wouldn't have it any other way, Chad."

* * *

Tongues of orange and red snaked across the sky as the sun began to descend over the horizon. Ichigo slung his bag over his shoulder as he exited the school. He would have been ecstatic to go home and do anything (and everything) non-academic, but the brief scuffle with the stranger earlier in the day had put a dampener on his spirits. The first embers of danger were starting to burn away the peace, and it was putting him on edge. Now was not the time to entertain complacency; the stranger had so easily defeated the two of them together, and that meant some training would do him well.

With that in mind, he decided he'd head back to Urahara's shop. Perhaps the giant underground room was still available for him to use.

"Going to Urahara's?"

Ichigo turned to see Rukia balancing on the ledge beside him. He turned away quickly, remarking as nonchalantly as he could, "Get down from there, you idiot. Everyone can see up your skirt."

"There's no one else around," Rukia replied dryly. "So by everyone, you mean just _you_."

"Same difference," Ichigo snapped back, thoroughly embarrassed.

Rukia mercifully leapt down, keeping pace with Ichigo as he walked. She leaned forward to get a look at Ichigo's face, and then pulled back upright. "What is it?"

"What's what?"

"That," Rukia said with a jab at his cheek, "isn't your usual scowl. Is something on your mind?"

Ichigo pushed aside the immediate thought that came to bear: the single, sour wisp of energy that had tainted the stranger's inexplicably empty aura. "Just worried about what went down today. I haven't been thrashed so badly since that first meeting with your brother."

Rukia frowned at his choice of words, punishing them with a swift knee to his ribs. He hacked and doubled over, clutching his side and writhing in pain. "If I recall, that was your own fault. You engaged when you should've fallen back," she said haughtily, turning her nose up.

"Right…and let them take you away?" Ichigo said, having caught his breath. "I don't think I'd ever live down abandoning someone so easily."

The raven-haired girl's mock arrogance melted away for a moment. She helped Ichigo to his feet and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you again."

"You don't have to—."

"I _know_ ," Rukia said with a huff. After a split second of hesitation, she repeated the words softly. "I know. You've said it a million times. But I'll say it a million times again until you accept it: you put your life on the line for me. I think some heartfelt thanks is in order."

Ichigo looked into her violet eyes and found the familiar, unrelenting stubborn streak in them. But he picked up on her sincerity, which made her look much softer than normal, something she'd been showing ever since her return to Karakura from Soul Society.

"Ah! You smiled!" Rukia exclaimed, her eyes the size of dinner plates.

Ichigo dragged his fingers down his face in annoyance. "I am 100% capable of smiling, I just don't do it often. Way to ruin the mood."

"But I can't remember ever seeing you smile!" Rukia said excitedly. "I'm going to have to put this in my sketchbook!"

"Do me a favor. Don't."

Ichigo had almost managed to put away his worries when a loud shockwave rippled through the air, followed by a familiar presence: Hollows. A _lot_ of them. Ichigo looked to Rukia, who had already grasped her pez-dispenser facsimile and was in the middle of swallowing down one of the little Soul Candies.

"Go find some place safe," Rukia instructed her gigai, which let out a string of disgustingly cutesy _pyons_ before bounding away.

Ichigo grimaced. "You were gonna let that…thing…run around in my body? I'm almost glad we got Kon instead."

Rukia drew her Zanpakuto, deigning only to shoot a scathing glance his way in response. "Follow Chappy and leave your body with her. I'll go ahead and head off as many as I can." She quickly bounded away, prompting Ichigo to call after her, "Don't get too ahead of yourself!" before he scrambled after the hyperactive artificial Soul, who was already disappearing out of sight.

* * *

Rukia cut down the reptilian Hollow before it managed to take a chunk out of her leg, leaping up to intercept another of the masked creatures as it flew through the air. Her blade bit into the flying Hollow's mask, but not deeply enough to finish it off. It thrashed, smacking Rukia with one of its odd wings and sending her careening into a nearby building.

Rukia wiped a bead of sweat off her brow and made short work of the Hollow with a blast of kido and a swing of her sword. She wasn't so hard-pressed to defeat each individual Hollow, but with so many on the loose, it was certainly difficult to catch her breath after each one went down.

Not to mention this number of Hollows was hardly a normal occurrence; the only reason so many Hollows would gather in one place would be because they were drawn there by something out of the ordinary, like Ishida's Hollow-bait. _Could it be his doing?_ Rukia wondered as she put down another Hollow with a flick of her wrist. She quickly dismissed that thought as his assistance in her rescue made that entirely unlikely, on top of which Inoue had remarked she couldn't feel his reiatsu anymore, leading her to believe that he'd somehow lost his powers.

All that left were some weak possibilities, save one: the recent interloper with the inexplicable non-spiritual pressure. She hadn't felt a presence like his until their afternoon altercation, and no other such example had made itself known afterwards, lessening her suspicion that this had been his doing. Perhaps the Hollows had somehow detected his power when he'd dispatched that other Hollow earlier?

Whatever the case was, Rukia was certain that somewhere in the thick of the Hollow horde, she'd find the stranger. This time she'd properly figure out what his intentions were, hopefully without sustaining injury.

She felt a familiar reiatsu bubble up from beneath her, and didn't have to look to know Ichigo had joined the fray. A plume of blue-white reiatsu crashed into a Hollow diving down at Rukia, cutting through it and burning the neatly bisected halves into clouds of dust.

"Got a head-count?"

Rukia shook her head. "Can't get an accurate reading with just my little phone. But I'd say there's at least 50 Hollows at large."

"Any idea why so many would show up all at once?" Ichigo grunted as his giant cleaver separated a Hollow's head from the rest of its body. Rukia explained her theory, and when she mentioned the stranger, Ichigo's brow furrowed and his swing's became tighter and more forceful. Rukia noted the slight change in his reiatsu as well, detecting less of the messy, uncondensed aura that normally roiled around him.

 _Is he…intimidated by him?_ Rukia wondered. She'd never felt him modulate his reiatsu to such a degree, except when he'd first encountered Renji and Byakuya.

Who could blame him? The more Rukia thought about it, the more their 'meeting' with the stranger earlier resembled the first altercation with Renji and Byakuya. Overwhelming force from an unknowable enemy, ending with complete defeat and survival only by the mercy of the enemy. It was only natural Ichigo would adapt the same way as he had before.

A particularly persistent Hollow wrapped one of its long arms around Rukia's legs, yanking her down and attempting to swallow her whole. A quick blast of blue flame made short work of the beast's arm, and instead of an easy meal, the Hollow was treated with a full-force stab with the business end of Rukia's Zanpakuto.

Another primitive Garganta opened up in the sky, pouring forth at least a dozen more of the white-masked mosnters.

"They won't stop coming," Ichigo called, dismembering one Hollow and decapitating another. "We need to figure out what's drawing them here and deal with it first!"

Rukia shouted back in agreement and then felt it: the same sheer weight that had nearly flattened her earlier. She looked up and saw _him_ , hovering in the air and observing the Hollows, hands in pockets and not a trace of urgency in his expression.

When one of the Hollows noticed his presence, he swiftly extended a hand and murmured an incantation, sending an arc of electricity straight into the attacking Hollow's face. It spasmed and died in a heap of smoldering flesh and dust, just as the Hollow from earlier in the day had perished. Its fellow beasts noticed the new interloper and, clearly not realizing the danger he posed, began making their way to this apparently defenseless morsel.

The stranger turned the lightning cascade on the horde of attacking Hollows, electrocuting a dozen of them before switching to melee combat. Rukia was forced to tear her eyes away from the spectacle to deal with a pair of small Hollows that had been trying to sneak up on her.

The battle raged on for so long that Chad and Inoue managed to join the fray, having felt the disturbances of battle. Rukia took heart from their ability to fend for themselves, and also from the fact that despite Inoue accidentally sending her Koten Zanshun too close to the stranger for comfort, he did not attempt to retaliate, though he glared witheringly at the orange-haired girl. That suggested at the very least that he did not see them as hostile, though it was a far cry from considering them allies.

As the flow of Hollows began to noticeably increase, despite the group's best efforts to contain the outbreak, the stranger surprised them by approaching first. Rukia had almost instinctively struck him down when he appeared alongside her, but was able to suppress the reflex.

"I require clarification," he intoned, gazing intently at the remnants of the primitive Garganta used by the Hollows as they entered Karakura. "Those creatures enter this town by means of those portals?"

"Yes. Why?" Rukia asked quickly, making sure to keep her eyes on the battlefield, in case another of the small ones tried to ambush her.

"I believe I can put a stop to that for a while," the stranger said. Then he leapt up, his voice booming with supernatural force.

" **Gravity Core, Barricade."**

A series of shimmers in the sky, followed by thunderclaps that rattled Rukia's teeth in her skull. The small cracks that the Garganta had left in the sun-streaked sky shuddered violently, before twisting and disappearing amidst the shimmering. Once the rumbling ceased, the stranger leapt back down, joining the four combatants in mopping up the rest of the Hollows.

It became clear that whatever the stranger had done had successfully stymied the flow of Hollows into Karakura, because in just a few moments, Rukia found herself looking around and finding no more of the spirit predators in the vicinity.

Ichigo leapt down, sheathing his giant Zanpakuto as he alighted upon a rooftop. He, too, scanned their surroundings for more hostiles. "So whatever that guy did really worked, huh?" he said incredulously.

"…Yeah," Rukia replied. "I've never seen anything quite like it. He really is a mysterious one, isn't he?"

"Kurosaki-kun! Kuchiki-san!" Inoue called from the streets below, Chad by her side. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah, we're good, Inoue," Ichigo called down. "Thanks for the assist, guys!"

Chad nodded. "Wasn't there another person here? Where did he go?"

"I am here."

Rukia turned to see the stranger land deftly on the rooftop next to Ichigo, who flinched and grabbed the handle of his Zanpakuto, clearly still on edge. But, to his credit, he did not react any further than that.

Rukia spoke first, seeking diplomacy. "Thank you for your help," she said as neutrally as she could, "but who are you? You're like nothing any of us has ever seen before, and we need to know where you stand."

He fixed his eye on her, sizing her up before responding. "We do not stand against each other. Is that not enough?"

"Not really," Ichigo interjected, moving around the stranger until he was standing side by side with Rukia. Chad and Inoue had made it to the rooftop by this point as well, and had taken up positions next to both of the Shinigami. "We've all had some issues with allies turning out to be enemies, so you'll forgive us if we're not so trusting when you say something that vague."

The stranger surveyed the four of them silently, not fazed in the slightest by their advantage in numbers. Why should he be? He'd had no trouble dealing with both Rukia and Ichigo earlier; she doubted that the addition of Chad and Inoue to another fight would be enough to tip the scales in their favor.

But he was non-combative, no aggression in his tone when he responded. "That is hardly my concern. But if it will allay your fears, then at least I will introduce myself. I am Mathis Jericho."

Rukia glanced at Ichigo, then at Chad and Inoue. The three of them seemed tense, on the verge of snapping into action. She couldn't blame them; they were young and had been embroiled in violence and betrayal very recently.

So she stepped forward, breaking the stand-off, and extended her hand. "A name for a name, then. Kuchiki Rukia. Hopefully we will remain on, at the very least, neutral terms."

Mathis eyed the proffered hand for a moment, a trace of surprise adorning his face. Then he took her hand in his own and gripped it tightly. "We will have to see," he murmured quietly. He then released the handshake, stepped back a few paces, and disappeared.

Ichigo and company let out a collective sigh of relief. "That could have been way worse," Ichigo breathed.

Rukia flexed her hand twice, the sensation of Mathis's hand in hers lingering in her palm. The bandages had been cold to the touch, and the hand beneath them tough and unforgiving. Not very typical qualities of a human hand.

"Maybe," Rukia piped up, directing her attention back to her friends. "But we should still stay on our guard. That man is not someone to be taken lightly."

"Of course," Chad replied. "We'll be on the watch from now on."

Rukia beamed back at Chad and Inoue. "It was good to know you had our backs."

Ichigo nodded in agreement and bumped his fist against Chad's shoulder. "Chad's a man of his word, after all. And Inoue, too. Well, woman of her word in her case." She blushed and smiled gratefully at the praise.

"Alright, now that we've got some breathing room, we should try to figure out what exactly was drawing all those Hollows here," Rukia said matter-of-factly. She pulled out her phone, only to notice that it had no signal whatsoever. She tapped it a few times, hoping that it was simply a bug of some sort, but was rewarded with no change to the giant X covering the screen. "Phone isn't working so we're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. Again."

"C'mon, it ain't so bad, is it?" Ichigo teased her. "Stretch your legs a bit!" And with that quip, Ichigo took off, surveying the town as he flew over it. Chad and Inoue also nodded and ran for the stairs, having decided to split up and canvass the town at ground level.

Rukia leapt up and turned to face the direction opposite Ichigo's, rocketing forward with a few steps.

* * *

Unbeknownst to the Shinigami and the humans, Mathis loomed somewhere above them all, light warping around him to guard from seeking eyes. The moment they split up, Mathis pulled out a small earpiece. He tapped it twice, then spoke.

"Keep watch on the boy. Do not engage until I give the order."


	3. Chapter 3 - This is why

**A/N: Sorry for the wait, guys. Same as with my previous story, I will unfortunately drop off the grid for a while to deal with life issues every now and then, though I hope it won't be nearly as frequent as it was during that story. Without further ado, here's the third chapter!**

* * *

A week had passed since the abrupt flood of Hollows had assaulted Karakura, and since then, not a _peep_. Rukia hadn't measured a single blip on her phone, and several sweeps of the town's perimeter had yielded no results.

Ichigo stood on one of the telephone poles just outside his family clinic, one hand loosely hanging off of Zangetsu, ready to bring it to bear at a moment's notice. While he was mostly confident at this point that nothing would show up, he wasn't about to let his complacency open him up to a surprise attack. Still, discipline aside, he had to admit he'd been enjoying his nighttime vigils. Between his supplementary lessons and his training in Urahara's odd basement, Ichigo had to admit he'd managed to drain himself rather quickly. These tranquil evenings in the peaceful dark had been welcome respites from the busyness of his daily labor. Uneventful, yes, but nevertheless very pleasant.

"How long are you gonna stand out there like that, you scarecrow?"

…Mostly pleasant.

Despite his every protestation, Rukia had taken up residence in his closet again. When he pointed out that she was part of the upper echelons of Soul Society nobility in a desperate bid to get her to find some place that was at least big enough to stand up in, she'd simply bolted up the stairs and into the closet before he could grab her.

"I'm doing what you're supposed to be doing, Miss Shinigami," Ichigo said half-heartedly, fingering the wrapped haft of his weapon. "Why don't you to earn your keep and do something?"

"If you're lonely, all you have to do is ask nicely!" she replied in her sickly sweet 'acting' voice.

"On second thought, you can stay right where you are."

A thrum and a pop told him Rukia had no intention of listening, and soon enough she was up and about with him, perched on a rooftop opposite his telephone pole.

"You _do_ have a point, after all. Can't afford to be sleeping on the job while my apprentice is hard at work looming over the town like…like…"

Ichigo dryly offered to finish her analogy, "A scarecrow?"

"…Yeah," she said lamely.

"Real witty, Kuchiki-dono," Ichigo said teasingly. She turned bright red and huffed angrily, "Don't call me that!"

Ichigo bowed his head in mock reverence. "I apologize, Kuchiki-dono! I was out of line—." He spluttered as Rukia drove her foot into his side, sending him careening onto a nearby building.

"That HURT, freeloader!" Ichigo bellowed.

"It was supposed to, scarecrow!" Rukia hollered back, punctuating her remark with an extended tongue.

Ichigo was very tempted to test a theory he'd had about Rukia being ticklish, but was stopped by a series of high-pitched beeps from Rukia's robes. She pulled out her phone and pored over it for a few minutes before snapping it shut and stowing it again.

"What's the word from upstairs?"

Rukia shook her head. "They can't open any gates into Karakura right now. Not without causing some serious damage."

The two simultaneously looked up at the night sky. Neither of them were staring at any fixed point, but Ichigo knew they were both thinking of the same thing: Mathis.

The odd young man's spell had done something to the sky, and Rukia had hypothesized that the very quiet week had been due to his spell preventing pathways from opening into the town. Given his unfamiliarity with Hollows and complete lack of exposure to Shinigami, she'd further reasoned that his power had not discriminated between the two; it was likely that Soul Society's Senkaimon access into the area had been negated as well.

Ichigo furrowed his brow. His train of thought had returned to this station for the third time this evening. Rukia seemed to notice, immediately asking, "Thinking about that Jericho boy again?"

Ichigo nodded. "Have you ever met someone like him before?"

Rukia shook her quietly. "I've asked Soul Society to look into cases of aberrant humans, but so far nothing's come up. You're all we've got on record, really."

Ichigo's concern only deepened. There was no mistaking Mathis for anything less than a capital threat, regardless of whether or not he considered Ichigo or Rukia allies. He was clearly acting on his own agenda, and Ichigo couldn't imagine that it lined up perfectly with theirs. The question was now a matter of what would happen when it became clear where their differences of opinion lay.

"What are you so worried about?" Rukia huffed, crossing her arms. "He said we were allies, didn't he?"

Ichigo nodded in agreement, but couldn't shake the feeling of something looming over the horizon, which he voiced to the petite woman. "We don't even know where he comes from and what his goals are."

Rukia unfolded her arms and reluctantly agreed. Then she turned a mischievous look upon the orange-haired Substitute Shinigami, asking, "Isn't this around when you say you'll handle it when you get to it?"

"Shut up," he shot back. "You don't need to tell me, I'm already planning on beating him if he turns on us."

But Ichigo felt a chill run through his body, starting from his lips and spreading through his physiology like a pall of winter cold. The lie felt like poison, eating through his very being the second it had left his mouth.

Ichigo could count on one hand the number of people he wasn't sure he could take on, and that wasn't out of any sense of arrogance. The way he figured it, if he'd beaten Lieutenant-class fighters with ease, and had been able to fight toe to toe with legendary Captains, there were few entities that he couldn't surpass somehow. Everything had become familiar to him, after all. Swordplay, hand-to-hand combat, combat agility. The only thing that he was unable to really deal with was kido, and he knew he could make up for that by exerting his greatest effort in every other aspect.

Ichigo was not worried that Mathis was stronger than he and Rukia were. After all, he'd defeated opponents that were stronger than him before. No, his concern regarded just how alien Mathis was. Everything Ichigo knew about fighting, from sword-fighting to sheer combat speed and flexibility, hell, even his limited understanding of the Demon Arts, it was all useless. And this would all be a problem if Mathis were even the level of a seated officer, but he very clearly exceeded that.

Beat Mathis? At his current strength, Ichigo may as well have attempted to empty the Pacific Ocean with a plastic spoon. He was laughably unprepared to handle an opponent he did not understand, who already stood above him in basic combat prowess, and wielded power that escaped not only his understanding, but also Soul Society's. Maybe one of the Captains could do it, given how experienced they were, but Ichigo? He'd been fighting for maybe a year now, and his enemies had lain squarely within the realm of Soul Society versus Hollows.

"Ichigo."

He snapped out of his stream of concern, turning back to Rukia. "What?"

A flush creeped along his jawline when he noticed her gaze had softened, giving her an uncharacteristically maternal gaze. The light of the moon painted her face a soft white, and her already beautiful eyes became as sparkling gems, fixed solely on him. This expression had become something of a recurring phenomenon with her lately.

"You know you're not alone in this, right? Should Mathis turn out to be an enemy…you know you'll have friends willing to stand by you, I hope?"

Ichigo wrenched his gaze away from her, collecting himself. "Yeah," he said roughly. "I know."

Rukia leapt over to him and clapped him on the shoulder repeatedly, her normally casual demeanor back at the fore. "Then you've got nothing to worry about, soldier!"

One look at Rukia told Ichigo immediately that she had noticed his self-consciousness and was trying to soothe his discomfort. Not only that, but—.

"How long are you going to feel indebted to me?" Ichigo asked quietly.

Rukia stopped hitting him, allowing her hand to come to a stop on his arm.

 _I thought so._

"I…" Rukia began, her voice wavering. She took a deep breath but then let it out as a great sigh. She withdrew her hand and said, "I'm sure it will pass soon enough."

He frowned at her unexpected tone of voice. She sounded almost _defeated_.

A dull _boom_ punctuated their conversation, prompting the two of them to whirl around towards the source of the sound. A thin column of smoke rose in the distance, and from that general direction, Ichigo could faintly hear the sounds of combat.

The two Shinigami glanced at each other, all business now that there was a potential threat on the playing field. They took off together at breakneck speed, advancing towards the pillar of grey and drawing their weapons as they closed in. Chad's reiatsu became readily apparent, its hefty weight and periodic thrumming very characteristic of the gentle giant. But there was something else with Chad, its presence roiling around his reiatsu as the two fought a heated battle. Ichigo noted the unfamiliarity of the unknown assailant's spiritual signature, and realized almost a split second too late that the strange sensation was bearing down on him from behind.

"Ichigo!" Rukia cried out in warning, immediately peeling off and somersaulting to the side. "I know!" he called back, following suit and sidestepping onto a nearby rooftop, barely evading a barrage of sharp spikes of what appeared to be bone.

Ichigo turned back to identify the assailant and beheld a creature he'd never seen before; his first instinct was to brand it another type of Hollow, but a cursory appraisal of the creature's chest revealed that there was no hole in its muscled body. It rippled with purplish sinew, the waves of defined muscle interrupted only by a handful of bony shards that decorated its body like crude armor. Its bone-covered, skeletal face snarled at the two Shinigami, jaw lined with razor-sharp projections that looked more like needles than teeth (it was a wonder to Ichigo that it could even close its mouth without accidentally stabbing itself), with a pair of purple orbs shining from deep within the otherwise empty eye sockets.

It swung its arms violently at Ichigo from range, prompting him to draw Zangetsu and block with the flat of the enormous blade. Another pair of spines ricocheted harmlessly off the weapon, seemingly infuriating the creature, which decided to charge forward and savage its prey with bony talons. Rukia immediately blasted the thing with a burst of red flame, causing it to falter in its attack trajectory and crash into the ledge of the roof. Ichigo immediately took the opportunity to cut down the dazed creature, slashing Zangetsu across its deathly visage.

It screamed horribly at the wound, but, instead of dying, grasped the Zanpakuto and began clambering up the blade towards a shocked Ichigo. He quickly recovered, swinging the weapon over his head and into the roof, stunning the creature momentarily, before leaping up and driving his weapon into its poorly armored chest.

The monster screeched once more before the grip of death slackened its burly form. "What on earth…?!" Rukia whispered, kneeling to quickly check the body of the beast. She didn't get to observe it for long, however; the body very quickly become dust in the wind, leaving behind no trace.

"C'mon, we gotta help Chad," Ichigo said urgently. He leapt into the air towards Chad's general direction, grunting in pain when two spines found their mark in his left arm.

He turned to face the offending monster, and caught a glimpse of the beast hurtling towards him, clawed hand pulled back and curled into an armored fist. Ichigo couldn't react in time with his wounded arm, but didn't need to, as Rukia swiftly slashed through the monster before it could land its surprise attack, neatly slicing through its midsection and leaving it in two pieces.

He pulled both of the spines out with gritted teeth, noting that his arm felt heavy and trying to move it hurt like hell.

"Let me heal you," Rukia said, placing her hands over the bleeding holes. But Ichigo shrugged her off, shaking his head. "Later. We gotta get to Chad first. He's on his own and we don't know what condition he's in."

Rukia hesitated a moment, but capitulated shortly with a firm nod. The two advanced quickly, cutting down two more of the creatures before finally arriving at the river bank, where Chad was fighting another of the beasts, though this one bore distinct differences from its comrades. Ichigo had noticed that every single monster they'd cut down on the way to Chad had looked exactly the same, which had raised many questions in and of itself. The monster Chad was fighting was distinctly taller and lankier, with heavier bone-armor on its limbs and chest and a short sword in hand. Its teeth were distinctly dull and flat, a complete contrast from the razor-sharp fangs of its smaller cousin, but otherwise its face was the same skull-shaped mess that Ichigo had cloven just moments before.

From what Ichigo could see, the two were mostly evenly matched, though Chad looked much worse for the wear than his opponent. Ichigo noted a few errant piles of dust littering the bank and the grassy hill and realized Chad probably had fought more of the smaller creatures Ichigo and Rukia had encountered.

"Chad!" Ichigo called to his friend. He swung Zangetsu with fury, sending a ribbon of blue light hissing towards the tall monster. It noticed the newcomer and the plume of reiatsu heading its way. Chad saw the attack as well, and blanched. "No, wait!"

The monster reached out with a hand and _caught_ the Getsuga, effectively stopping the attack in its tracks and seemingly dissolving the concentrated slash into a cloud of blue. It opened its maw and inhaled deeply, funneling the cloud into a stream that snaked its way down the creature's throat.

"Ichigo! It eats reiatsu and gets stronger, but it's still vulnerable to physical attack. Kill it now!" Chad called to him, dashing forward to interrupt the monster's meal.

Rukia snapped forward and swung her Zanpakuto into the creature's head, while Chad swung his armored fist into its belly. The attacks forced the gluttonous beast to let go of the cloud of reiatsu with a snarl and guard itself, catching Chad's fist with one hand and blocking Rukia's strike with its short sword. It could not, however defend against a third attack with both its arms occupied, and could only watch helplessly as Ichigo descended from above it, plunging his great cleaver into its skull with a crunch.

It keeled over, quickly dissolving into a fine powder that scattered with a single swing of Rukia's Zanpakuto as she sheathed it.

"You ok, Chad?" Ichigo asked, frowning at the handful of cuts and bruises adorning the well-built youth's body.

"Yeah. Thanks for the save," he said quietly, nodding his head in gratitude. "What were those things?"

Rukia shook her head. "Your guess is as good as ours." She held out a hand to both Chad and Ichigo, murmuring an incantation and passing her hand over their most obvious wounds. Ichigo felt relief rush over his arm, the weight and pain slowly washing away as Rukia's healing technique began to knit his wounds back together. Chad's wounds were minor, and as such were quick to disappear, like wiping away a coffee ring with a napkin.

"How did you end up with so few injuries? It looked like you took on more of the bastards than we did," Ichigo noted with a raised eyebrow, gesturing to some of the little lumps of monstrous dust scattered about.

Chad shook his head in confusion. "I don't understand it myself. The little ones didn't seem to care about me, even after I killed one for getting too close to an open window. After that I started taking them down wholesale, but unless I directly engaged one they didn't even so much as look at me. Only the big guy actively came after me."

"Most of your injuries came from fighting him, then?" Rukia asked.

"Yeah. He was a tough one. He got stronger after the first two Directos I fired at him so I had to stop and fight him hand to hand. Otherwise…" he trailed off, the doubt clear in his barely wavering voice.

Ichigo bumped the dark-skinned teen on the shoulder with his own, grinning. "What're you so worried about? You're a big guy. I'm sure you could've still taken that thing down, even if we hadn't shown up."

Chad smiled a little in response to the compliment. Rukia piped up, concern still evident in her voice. "I'm glad you were able to hold out, but the implications behind that larger beast are troubling. Being able to consume reiatsu like that shouldn't be possible for a beast of that caliber. Even _Captains_ can't just casually convert someone else's reishi while in combat."

"Honestly, I'm more curious about why the other things avoided him. They came straight at us," Ichigo said, turning to observe the street and rooftops, making sure none of the spike-toothed creatures were trying to sneak up on them. "You'd think one target is easier to handle than two, so why would they pick the harder option?"

He turned back to face his friends and beheld a third figure, standing behind Chad and bandaged hand raised, a beam of crackling blue light extending from his outstretched fingers.

" _This_ is why."

Ichigo's heart stopped. His surprise became paranoia, his paranoia became alarm, his alarm very quickly transformed into a singular directive: _defend_. His body moved faster than he thought possible, his hand already outstretched and almost touching his Mexican friend. But even with the adrenaline pumping through his veins, Ichigo could tell he wasn't going to be able to pull Chad away from Mathis's attack.

The solid bar of light sliced clean through the union of Chad's armored limb to the rest of his flesh-and-bone body, and a fountain of crimson erupted from the wound, followed shortly after by a scream of agony.


	4. Chapter 4 - Dazed and Confused

**A/N: Trying to pick up a little speed in both story and updates, so I've split what I've got now to give you this chapter. Hopefully I'll finish the rest and put it out as Chapter 5 sooner rather than later. As always, I welcome (and would thoroughly enjoy) any and all constructive criticism, and I won't lie, telling me what you think of the story in a review or PM helps motivate me to write more and faster!**

 **Chapter 4 – Dazed and Confused**

Time slowed to a mocking crawl, granting Ichigo an unwanted level of clarity in the streamers of dark crimson spurting from his friend's right shoulder. Chad's cry of agony echoed in his ears, and his expression of shock and pain sliced open Ichigo's heart. He'd never heard his tall and mostly reticent friend yell out in pain so earnestly, never seen such a look of torment twist his otherwise granite features so.

A wave of fury washed over the young Shinigami, and he kicked himself into high-gear. He pulled Chad aside, towards Rukia, and immediately unsheathed Zangetsu, swinging the great cleaver into the Chad's inscrutable attacker. "You'll pay for that!" he roared as the razor's edge of his Zanpakuto smashed into Mathis's deftly raised forearm.

Ichigo followed through, a whirlwind of steel bearing down on his opponent. Any doubts he'd had about how to handle Mathis were all but gone at this point, replaced by a fierce determination to cut down the traitorous man. His ire grew, his assault bearing little fruit as Mathis effortlessly defended against the tirade, then waned as he realized Mathis was _only_ defending.

One particularly heavy swing caught Mathis off-guard, sending him skidding away a few meters. If he was at all perturbed by the unexpectedly strong blow, he did a great job of concealing it. With a growl, Ichigo asked, "Not gonna fight back?"

Mathis lowered his arm and shook his head. "Are you truly that blind?" he wondered, his tone suffused with an almost scathing pity. Ichigo frowned, completely taken aback by the accusation.

Mathis spoke a single word. "Contain." At that, Ichigo automatically raised his weapon to defend himself, and not a moment too soon, as it turned out. Several blurs leapt out from shadows and nooks between nearby houses and shops, heading straight for Ichigo—.

No. They passed him by harmlessly, instead focusing their approach on the prone Chad.

"No, you don't!" Ichigo yelled, turning to engage one of the shadowy figures, but felt a cool hand grip his sword-arm like an iron vice. He turned to see Mathis, who gave him a very subtle shake of the head. "Perhaps you should take a closer look." Ichigo detected the slightest hint of admonishment in the simple suggestion and nearly turned on Mathis again. The bastard had cut off his friend's arm, how else was one supposed to interpret that?!

Ichigo wrested his arm free and, despite his misgivings, watched as the men and women garbed in black formed a circle around Chad, who propped himself on a bloody…arm?

It took him a few moments to process that Chad had not lost a limb, something Chad himself seemed to be confused about. Rukia had her Zanpakuto at the ready, and despite her best efforts, her expression of shock was just as pronounced. If Chad's arm was intact, where had the blood—

At first, Ichigo thought that Chad had screamed again, except it was clear that his lips had not moved, and that he himself was startled by the bloodcurdling noise. One of the operatives had brandished a shock baton, the black metal snapping with arcs of electricity as he swung it briskly at a dark patch on the ground by Chad.

A mass of black _something_ lashed back with a hiss. The sudden movement drew Ichigo's attention; it had gone almost completely unnoticed by the Karakura resident trio, but it seemed like Mathis's mysterious troupe had known exactly what to look for. Another swing of the electrified baton caused the thing to rear up like a snake, baring a belly with purplish accents. The detail finally clicked in Ichigo's head, and the revolting truth of the matter was clear: the creature was none other than the remnants of Chad's armor, somehow forcibly torn off his living flesh like a discarded sleeve.

"What the hell is that?!" Ichigo demanded, his voice having finally returned to him. He watched as another of the shadowy agents raised a hand, conjuring a deep crimson ball of flame and hurling it at the writhing serpent-like creature. It reeled back and shrieked in agony as the immolating light ate away at its body.

"A demon," Mathis said shortly, watching as his compatriots quickly reduced the monster's mass to the size of a baseball, at which point it had all but lost the energy to move, weakly attempting to crawl away. One of the men immediately smashed the extended 'fingers' underfoot, causing the creature to recoil and retract the appendage with a faint snarl.

Dozens of questions raced through Ichigo's head, none of which he seemed to be able to voice. Demons? Where did they come from? Who were these guys so effortlessly handling the arm-demon thing? Was Karakura under attack? How many more of these demons were there in the city?

How had this demon latched onto Chad without anyone noticing?

"I imagine you have many questions," Mathis cut into his stream of consciousness like a knife. "They will have to wait."

Ichigo opened his mouth to protest, but stopped when he noticed Mathis's comrades had finished caging the creature in a strange little cube, and were now moving on the still-floored Chad. "Wait, what the hell are they doing?!" Ichigo demanded, his muscles tensed and ready to go once more.

"You _must_ bepretending to be grossly incompetent." Mathis shot back coldly. "Or did you think simply removing the demon from your friend's limb would be enough to cleanse him?"

"Answer the damn question, Jericho," Ichigo snarled, undeterred by the biting remark.

Mathis replied with another, almost imperceptible shake of his head. "They are preparing to take him to our local base of operations, where the process of purging him will be completed. Unless you want your friend to be infected more aggressively than before, you would do well to stay your partner's hand."

Ichigo blinked, not quite understanding what he meant by the last bit, then realized he was referring to Rukia, who had quickly taken up a defensive stance by Chad. One of the operatives calmly gestured to Chad, earning a warning from Rukia, who bent her knees in preparation for combat. Ichigo shot Mathis a glare. "How do I know I can trust you?"

Mathis met his withering glower with an uncaring eye. "You do not have the luxury of choice."

"Is that a threat?"

The heavy emptiness became tinged metallic and sour once more, and Mathis responded with great deliberation. "That depends on you."

Ichigo narrowed his eyes, trying to read the enigmatic young man's dispassionate face. It was like trying to read a brick wall, and after a brief moment of silence, Ichigo capitulated and waved Rukia down as he made his way over to her and Chad.

"Ichigo? What's going on?" Rukia asked, her sword still at the ready, though no longer pointed at the closest operative. Chad coughed, trying to get to his feet. He didn't make it very far, as one of the black-garbed agents quickly put a hand on his back and eased him back to the ground, speaking to Chad in foreign tongue with a calm, soothing voice. Ichigo surmised the man was fluent in Spanish, judging by Chad's expression of surprise at hearing his ethnic language. The agent motioned to his comrades, who swiftly deployed some sort of mobile stretcher.

"They're going to take care of him," Ichigo said softly. "I don't understand exactly how, but…if we don't let them look him over, apparently he'll get worse."

"Worse?" Rukia asked incredulously. "What's wrong with him to begin with?" She looked over towards Mathis, who continued to watch from afar, motionless.

"Where are they taking him?"

Ichigo shook his head. "Their headquarters or something."

"We're going too, right?"

Ichigo nodded grimly. "Of course we are. No way in hell we're leaving Chad alone."

Rukia sheathed her weapon and folded her arms. "Well we're certainly not going to trail them covertly. I don't think that one over there," she jerked a thumb at the statuesque Mathis, who watched silently as a van wheeled around the corner and came to a stop next to the men carrying Chad, "wouldn't notice us if we decided to try and tail them."

"Got any better ideas?" the orange-haired Shinigami asked.

Rukia said matter-of-factly, "We'll tell him."

* * *

In hindsight, Rukia found her somewhat simple plan to be a great deal more complicated than she'd initially thought. She hadn't quite planned on how she was going to broach the idea of following Chad to the home base of what was clearly a clandestine organization to someone who could give the perpetually stone-faced Byakuya a run for his money.

There was also the issue of the spell he'd cast on the sky still disrupting movement to and from Soul Society; Rukia wasn't sure how widespread the effect was, but she knew that, at least in the vicinity of Karakura Town and some of the neighboring regions, communications with Soul Society was sporadic and spotty at best and movement between realms had either been reduced to a crawl or completely stymied. This was an issue that also needed to be resolved sooner rather than later, and Rukia saw no other way of doing so than by speaking with the cause of the issue himself.

Diplomacy was not Rukia's strong suit, but she knew her way around it well enough to deal with Mathis. Better her than her hot-headed friend, at any rate.

As she and Ichigo neared their quarry, she became acutely aware of his piercing blue eye staring straight through her. She wasn't sure what it was about this _boy_ that disconcerted her so, whether it was his barren pressure that inexplicably weighed on her like dense reiatsu, or the uncannily sharp glint in his visible eye that didn't belong to someone of his apparent age. While she'd teased Ichigo earlier about not immediately stating he'd take care of Mathis if he turned out to be hostile, she wasn't so sure if she could express such enthusiastic determination herself. This guy was most certainly trouble. The kind that you didn't walk away from in one piece if it decided it didn't like you.

"I hope you've explained the situation to your friend?" Mathis asked quietly, his question directed at Ichigo, but his gaze still squarely fixed on Rukia. She suppressed the urge to shudder, and responded briskly. "That's actually why we're here. We're following Chad."

Mathis narrowed his eye. "If I didn't know better, I would say that sounded like a _demand_ , Miss Kuchiki," he said softly, his voice dangerously low. Rukia disobeyed her instincts to step back and draw her blade, instead doing the exact opposite and closing the distance between them with a single bold step. "If you think we're the kind of people who'd stand back and watch their friend get carted off by a group of strangers, you're sorely mistaken," she said firmly, belying the anxiety fluttering in her gut.

He stared at her for a few moments. Rukia swore his frown grew more pronounced as he looked the two of them over, and was about to further reinforce their resolve when he spoke again. "Fair." He disappeared in a buzz of static. A minute passed before Rukia started to worry that Mathis had pulled a fast one on them and left them behind. She was about to suggest to Ichigo that they try and pursue when a figure came hurtling over the rooftops, landing with a thud a few feet behind them, facefirst.

Neither Shinigami knew how to voice their shock and concern, resulting in an awkward silence as the young man carefully extricated himself from the groove he'd created in the embankment. Without warning he yelled, "What the FUCK, man?!"

The stranger was fairly lean, somewhat like the ex-Captain Ichimaru Gin (Rukia shuddered at the memory of that horrid man), with a tousle of messy brown hair and, despite his apparent annoyance, a pair of kind, brown eyes that shone brightly with jovial energy. Upon straightening himself out, it became clear that he was rather tall. Mathis had been a little taller than Ichigo, but this man towered over them both by several inches and easily dwarfed Rukia.

The first to regain his voice was Ichigo, who asked hesitantly, "Are you ok? You, uh…" he gestured at the sizable divot in the ground, "hit the ground pretty hard there."

"Oh, did I?" the peeved man said with a smirk. "Wasn't sure why my face was hurting so much. Thanks!"

Her initial concern for him immediately deflated. He was one of _those_ characters: constantly blithe and blasé about pretty much anything and everything. Rukia very loudly coughed and made to turn back towards the direction he'd come from. "If you're feeling alright then I guess we can just go on our way, then."

"Whoa whoa, hold your horses, miss," the young man said with a hasty leap to her side. "I don't suppose you were just going to abandon your buddy, were you?"

Rukia shot him a look that could've stopped a charging bull dead in its tracks, earning her a flinch and sheepish grin. "Ha ha, bad joke, bad joke."

He straightened and dusted himself off, clearing his throat as he introduced himself. "Name's Kale. I hope you didn't mind my…unorthodox entrance," he said with a small glint in his eyes betraying his lingering irritation. "I was asked to bring you to our local base of operations and fill you in a little on what's been going on."

"What, was bigshot Jericho too busy for us?" Ichigo scoffed, folding his arms. Kale raised an eyebrow as he responded, "Uh…yeah, actually. The guy practically never sleeps." The orange-haired Shinigami's bravado wilted a little at that. He managed nothing more than a cowed 'oh' before Rukia took over. "Busy doing what?" she pressed.

"That's classified, sweetheart," Kale said with another apologetic grin, which he stifled immediately when Rukia slugged him in the shoulder. "Don't call me sweetheart," she said warningly.

"Jeez," he said with a mirthful laugh, rubbing his shoulder as he remarked, "your girlfriend's one hell of a firecracker, ain't she?"

Rukia's heart jumped in her throat before she slugged him again. "Alright, will you quit it with the fuckin' punching?" Kale said with another chuckle, though this time it sounded more like a pained grunt than anything else. "Just friends, then?" When neither Rukia nor Ichigo responded, instead electing stare down the jovial youth, he sighed. "Man, whatever. You guys are almost as cold as ol' Jericho."

He beckoned the two with a single crooked finger. "C'mon. We ain't got all night."

Rukia nodded, blinking when Kale disappeared. She whirled around, suspecting foul play, when she heard Kale call from a rooftop. "You comin' or what?" She glanced at Ichigo, who returned the gesture with a modicum of surprise. Kale had moved just like Mathis had, disappearing and reappearing at his target location faster than either could track. The two leapt up after Kale, who continued to move sporadically, always waiting for the two Shinigami to notice his new location and adjust their course accordingly.

It was becoming painfully evident that Rukia needed to learn more about these people. Mathis's display of power had almost completely eluded her understanding, and this method of impossibly fast movement that was common to both Kale and Mathis had similarly left her confused and wary. If there were more like them, they could prove to be a substantial threat. Despite their tenuous 'peace,' Ichigo had made a fairly good point: they had no clue what Mathis and his secret organization was after. Given that Mathis was so straightforward and seemed to have no apparent qualms with bulldozing past anyone in his way, Rukia found that Ichigo's earlier concern was more than valid.

Kale halted, putting an end to Rukia's brainstorming. He leapt down, out of sight, prompting the two Shinigami to quickly alight on his vacated perch, watching as he strode down a dimly lit alley towards a heavy steel door flanked by a handful of guards. The trio of burly Japanese men standing guard saw him and stiffened, immediately standing at attention and snapping off quick salutes. Kale waved them down, his tone dismissive. "You guys know I hate that crap, cut it out."

He called up to Rukia, "Come on down, you two. You're not gonna get anywhere chillin' out up there like a pair of gargoyles."

She glanced at Ichigo, who didn't notice the gesture and elected to comply with Kale's suggestion. Rukia sighed. Every time she'd thought he'd grown up a bit, he proved her wrong by doing something impulsive. The alleyway was a perfect spot for a trap, and if Kale was aiming to take the two of them out…

"Oi. I'm not kidding, you should really come down from there," Kale said, his tone insistent. He motioned to one of the guards, prompting him to tap a series of numbers into a keypad that had been hidden under one of the 'bricks' in the wall. A loud _kachunk_ reverberated through the thick door as it clicked open and slowly swung wide.

No, if he'd intended to kill them, he wouldn't have led them right to their center of operations in the city. That ran the risk of revealing a critical nerve center to an enemy if things didn't go according to plan. With that in mind, Rukia bit her lip and took the plunge, landing just in front of her friend and gripping the scabbard of her Zanpakuto tightly.

Kale tapped the shoulder of one of the guards, muttering something in his ear. The guard nodded and ascended by leaping off the walls, quickly disappearing over the edge of the roof. "Where's he going?" Ichigo asked.

The tall man shrugged. "That's on a need-to-know basis, so I'm not really allowed to tell you."

Rukia very deliberately crossed her arms, as did Ichigo. One of Kale's eyebrows jumped at the unintentionally concerted motion, and he said with the slightest hint of a grin, "You two practice that often?" which caused both of them to look at each other in confusion. Rukia turned her gaze back to Kale and said hotly, "We're not a couple!"

He simply laughed once and responded, "Not yet, you're not." Then, without letting either of the flustered Shinigami respond, he briskly walked through the now-open doorway, which remained open as a clear invitation to follow.

Rukia huffed and tried to calm down, turning her thoughts away from Kale's comments and towards the task at hand. This was clearly a well-organized fighting force, evidenced by clear ranking, capable soldiers (if these guards and Mathis's entourage were any indication), and a base of operations. She had a feeling that walking through that door would very quickly suck her into a different world, replete with its own slew of disasters. Rukia had long since learned to trust her gut, and her gut told her that, while this meeting was bad news, it was most likely necessary. Those things, those _demon_ s, as Mathis had called them, were probably going to show up in Karakura again, if not anywhere else. If Soul Society was unaware of such an enemy, they would need all the intel they could get, and with no one else on the ground to get it, the responsibility fell squarely on her shoulders.

So she took a deep breath and steeled herself, following Kale into the dark of the door, Ichigo following closely behind.


End file.
